Bay of Pigs

The Bay of Pigs (17-19 April 1961) was the site of a failed invasion of Cuba by the United States-backed Brigade 2506, a group of anti-Castro Cuban exiles that was supposed to start a counter-revolution on the island with the support of the people. The United States government of John F. Kennedy had planned the invasion in response to Castro's alignment towards the Eastern Bloc, his nationalization of foreign industries in the country, and his purchase of oil from the USSR, and Kennedy decided to stop the spread of communism in Latin America by fomenting counter-revolutions there. The Americans trained a group of 1,500 Cuban exiles in the Miami area and landed them at the Playa de Giron in the Bahia de Cochinos (the "Bay of Pigs"), hoping that the people of Cuba would rise up when they discovered that Cuba was being invaded. The invasion had some success at first, with the Brigade 2506 men overrunning some local militiamen, and Kennedy sent in some CIA operatives to assassinate Fidel Castro at the Santa Maria plantation; they succeeded only in killing a body double of his, Bruno Romero. As the world realized that America was involved in the invasion, Kennedy decided not to send in US Air Force B-26 bombers to prevent Soviet intervention or a drop in international opinion, and the Cuban exiles were slaughtered on the beaches. After only three days, all of the exiles were dead or were forced to surrender, and Castro became a Cuban hero for protecting his island from US invasion. The failure of the invasion led to a USSR-Cuban alliance, and the USA was unable to foment regime change on the island.